I can’t help but feel we are approaching the end of the golden age of obituaries. Advances in communication technologies have for many years made names and faces known to us on an unprecedented scale. Reading brief summaries of the lives of those who are gone touches our hearts and minds almost as if they were members of family. We are now seeing the last of the lives of the men and women that shaped the 20th century. Those who overcome economic depression, fought the Second World War and opened the boundaries of space are referred to by Tom Brokaw as the “The Greatest Generation”.
In thinking back over 2005, many of us will be moved by the passing of that generations representatives - for example - Pope John Paul II, Arthur Miller, ex Prime Ministers Heath and Callaghan, Rosa Parks and others who remind of the times we live in and (in a sense) who we are. Although it was not prominently featured in the various year-end reviews, the passing in 2005 that had particular meaning for me was that of former world heavyweight boxing champion from Germany, Max Schmeling
In a Unitarian service in Cork sometime ago, Bridget Spain challenged us to think about how we would have actually conducted ourselves had we lived in Hitler’s Germany. Honest answers to that question are not at all up-lifting. I have read about Maximilian Kolbe, who in 1941 took another mans’ place for execution at Auschwitz and was starved to death by his captors. He was canonised in 1982. While his goodness shines out and inspires, I know his sacrifice would be beyond my capacity.
Another man who lived through that era was Max Schmeling, the son of a ship’s navigator who turned to professional boxing in 1924. “It was a time that wanted heroes”, he later recalled. He won the European light-heavy weight crown in 1928 and then determined to move up a weight class and challenge American Jack Sharkey for the world heavyweight title, which he did successfully in 1930. His finest hour came later however in 1936 in a non-title fight with a young, upcoming boxer from America with 28 straight victories, Joe Louis. Although past his prime and by this own assessment the inferior boxer, Schmeling studied Louis’ form and discovered a weakness in his defence. He exploited this to knockout Louis in the 12th round.
Predictably the Nazis seized upon this as further proof of “Aryan” supremacy. Schmeling became an active if unwilling Nazi propaganda tool. The rematch for the world championship became a contest of mythic proportions that gripped the imaginations of people all over the world as a conflict between a representative of the “master race” and the son of an American sharecropper. However the reality was somewhat different. In the lead up to the fight Schmeling was instructed to get rid of his Jewish manager, Joe Jacobs, but refused. Never reconciled to Hitler’s racial and religious persecutions, he referred the up coming bout somewhat disingenuously as “just another fight”. However reluctantly, he did nevertheless fulfil his role a representative of the Third Reich, which can be seen from the newsreels of that period.
Louis on the other hand did feel he was fighting for his country and was even invited to the While House to meet FDR. He felt he could never be champion until he had defeated the man who had defeated him. The savage beating that Louis meted out to the 32-year-old Schmeling on the fateful night of 22 June 1938 in 2 minutes and four seconds of the first round is the stuff of folklore. Decades later with wry smile Schmeling would say that on cold mornings he was still reminded of the blows Louis delivered on that night.
With the outbreak of WWII Schmeling was called into the Wehrmacht where he feared he would have more propaganda value to the regime as a dead war hero than as an ex-boxing champion. He was reported injured in Crete but as if to exercise some control over his fate Schmeling scrupulously pointed out that he had actually been hospitalised due to stomach cramps.
As an ex-boxer living in a devastated and occupied country, the path was now clear for the inevitable decline. Injury, illness, obscurity and poverty have been the fate of so many ex-fighters, which speaks so articulately for the sports’ banning. Schmeling even attempted a comeback in the desperate environment of post war Germany, fighting well into his forties. His story has a happy ending, however.
He became involved the marketing of a fast moving consumer good that had been tremendously successful in The United States. The product was just starting to move abroad to places like Germany following the resurgence of world trade after WWII. What was it? Coca-Cola; Max Schmeling died a millionaire.
In 1954 he made a curious decision while on business in New York. He took a side trip to Chicago to meet the man with whom his previous encounter decades before had been short, violent and humiliating. Despite being one of America’s greatest champions, the years had been hard on Joe Louis as they had been on so many ex-boxers. From that meeting onward, the erstwhile representative of Aryan supremacy and a grandson of slaves maintained a friendship as unlikely as it was warm that lasted up until the latter’s death in 1981. Schmeling is believed to have helped Louis financially on a number of occasions and is said to have paid for his funeral costs.
Max Schmeling died early in 2005 just months short of his 100th birthday. My first reaction to learning of the passing of this forgotten man was superficial: “I thought he was dead year’s ago!” As I read the various obituaries and was reminded of his curious life, I came to believe we should contemplate his memory with affection, perhaps even admiration. Many would condemn him for the compromises he accepted but others would argue that it was because of his influence that he was able to save Jewish friends from the concentration camp. One can only admire his survival and resurgence in difficult and dangerous circumstances. His subsequent friendship and care for Joe Louis stands as a symbol of reconciliation for our age. Rest in Peace, Max Schmeling.
F. Spengeman Cork Unitarian Church
18 January 2006